Lynn McGee
Crush, 16
Now I know your truck has the mild scent
of leather. Your cuffs are embroidered with initials,
and your middle initial is L, lazy as rope floating
on the surface of water, unlooping. When I arrive,
there are olives and bottles of wine on the onyx
counter. You give me the larger room, my bed
a lavish white raft. There’s an ice pack
in the freezer for my knee, and a package of frozen
peas. The coffeemaker’s gurgling doesn’t wake you.
The Vegas sun is more in charge than the sun
in New York City. Grackles colonize every tree
in the path of their invasion, and make muscular
strides across the lawn. Your glass of water
from last night magnifies the room key
behind it. The virtual you and live you align,
and my eyes adjust to morning light.
Lynn McGee is the author of Tracks (Broadstone Books, 2019) and Sober Cooking (Spuyten Duyvil Press, 2016), as well as two award-winning poetry chapbooks, Heirloom Bulldog (Bright Hill Press, 2015) and Bonanza (Slapering Hol Press, 1996). Here poems have appeared in the American Poetry Review, Southern Poetry Review, Ontario Review, Phoebe, Painted Bride Quarterly, Sun Magazine, and The New Guard, among other journals, as well as in the anthology Stonewall’s Legacy (Local Gems Press, 2019), edited by With José Pelauz, McGee wrote the children’s book Starting Over in Sunset Park (Tilbury House Publishers, 2020). She serves on the advisory board of the Hudson Valley Writers Center and co-curates the Lunar Walk Poetry Series with Gerry LaFemina and Madeleine Barnes. Online at lynnmcgee.com.
SUBMIT to What Rough Beast via our SUBMITTABLE site.
If you enjoyed today’s poem and you value What Rough Beast, consider making a donation to Indolent Books, a nonprofit poetry press.